Her father’s old Mustang offered an illusion of safety, as if his arms were wrapped protectively around her. Still, she wanted to hurry Annie and Nolan along toward it.
“Come on,” Caroline murmured, stepping toward the car. She ignored the nose-to-tail gouge in the paint, a souvenir from her escape at the golf course. She just wanted to get inside. To get moving.
But Nolan stopped. He tipped his face up toward his mother, his eyes open and curious in the moonlight.
“How long are we going away?” he asked.
“Just a few days, honey,” Annie replied. “We’re going to go on a long trip, but then we’re going to come back here and pack up all of our stuff and go home.”
“Home to Henrik’s house?”
Annie paused and met Caroline’s eyes before answering.
“Yes,” Annie said.
“Good. I like Henrik,” Nolan said. “But can we come back and visit here some time? They have good ice cream here. And good swings.”
Instead of answering her son, Annie looked toward the hills and pastures. Even in the darkness, the air was fresh, a verdant green moistness overlaid with sea salt. But despite the pastoral beauty, Caroline knew what Annie was seeing: a prison. Nothing could ever erase the reason why Annie had come to this place.
“Maybe someday we can come back here,” Annie allowed, glancing at Caroline.
On the silent cue, Caroline led Annie and her son toward her waiting car.
Behind her, she heard Annie’s words, softly spoken to her son. “I need you to try to sleep in the car. We have a very long trip ahead of us.”
Annie strapped her son into the car seat. Then she moved to close the passenger door, her movements hurried and efficient, as if she felt as vulnerable as Caroline did in the open.
“Don’t forget Dino,” said Nolan, his almond-shaped eyes big and concerned.
Annie reached into the large purse slung over her shoulder. She fished out a turquoise dinosaur and handed it to Nolan, then moved again to close the passenger door.
“And Teddy,” Nolan said.
In answer, Annie opened her bag again, withdrawing a tattered stuffed bear, which her son took and tucked beside the dinosaur.
Nolan opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Annie handed him a gray fox.
Nolan smiled a large smile and hugged the fox as his mother shut the back passenger door and climbed into her seat.
When Annie had closed the door, all was quiet. The streets of Mendocino lay dormant and empty in the moonlight.
“Is it going to be a long drive?” Nolan asked, breaking the silence.
“We’ll be in San Francisco in about three hours,” Caroline answered, pulling away from the curb and swinging the Mustang onto the road.
“Is Dino short for dinosaur?” Caroline asked Nolan, her conversation an attempt to ward off the seriousness of their journey.
“No,” Nolan answered from the backseat. “It’s short for what kind of dinosaur he is. See if you can guess.”
“Can you give me a hint?” she asked.
“He lived in the Cretaceous period and liked to eat Tenontosaurus for breakfast.”
“Dimetrodon?” Caroline asked, though she knew it couldn’t be right.
Nolan laughed like she’d cracked a joke. “Dimetrodon wasn’t even a dinosaur. Plus, he lived in the Triassic. Tenontosaurus lived in the Cretaceous. So he couldn’t have been eating him. Dino’s a Deinonychus. Duh,” he added.
“Duh,” Caroline repeated, smiling. She chanced another glance at Annie Wong, whose eyes remained unreadable.
“I got us a flight out of Oakland to LaGuardia,” Caroline said, checking her rearview mirror as they drove out of town. Still no one else on the road. Good.
When Annie didn’t respond, Caroline left the subject of their travel plans. Annie probably didn’t care. She just needed to get the hearing over and done. So she could go on with her life . . . if that was possible after what had happened to her.
“Can we stop for food soon?” Nolan asked.
“As soon as we hit the 101 freeway, we can stop at a Burger Boy or something,” Caroline said, trying to think of the quickest meal she could find. They had a few hours before their flight. Even so, she wanted to get to the airport early.
“Maybe you could get a milk shake or something,” Caroline added.
“Woo-hoo!” Nolan crowed.
“If it’s okay with your mom, I mean,” Caroline added, casting the scientist another sideways glance.
When Annie didn’t respond, Caroline took it as agreement. Or catatonia.
“It’ll be my treat,” Caroline said. She’d charge dinner to the firm. It was the least Hale Stern, LLP, could do.
Prickles of bile clawed at Caroline’s throat. The oily film in her mouth was unpleasant but didn’t account for the morbid funk that always descended on her after eating a bad meal. She only got so many meals in a lifetime. She hated to waste any of them on inedible food.
Nolan, on the other hand, happily slurped a milk shake in the backseat, his stomach apparently impervious to the trials of fast food. Caroline envied him his hearty constitution.
Accelerating back onto the highway, she checked her rearview mirror. She saw only a handful of headlights scattered far behind her. Good. Perhaps their trip down to San Francisco would transpire without incident.
In the backseat, Nolan’s slurping slowed, becoming intermittent, and then finally stopped. When Caroline checked her rearview mirror again, Nolan lay sleeping against the seat belt, his milk shake still gripped in his hand, his menagerie of animals tucked across his lap. The child looked peaceful and not the least bit nauseated. Caroline envied him his comfort, too.
“Do you have any siblings?” Annie asked.
Caroline startled at the sound of the scientist’s voice. After Annie’s virtual silence during the meal at Burger Boy, Caroline hadn’t expected much conversation.
“No, I don’t have any brothers or sisters,” Caroline answered. “How about you?”
“I have a younger sister.”
“Are you close?”
“No. We used to be,” Annie answered.
Caroline could feel a story lurking behind the scientist’s tone.
“What changed?” Caroline asked.
“Nolan.”
“She didn’t like that you’d had a kid out of wedlock?”
“No. Neither did my parents. They stopped speaking to me.” The words were hard and cold. The brittleness was back.
“I don’t understand how a parent could do that,” Caroline said quietly.
“They’re very traditional. I’m second-generation Chinese American. I grew up in Chinatown in San Francisco until I was ten. My grandparents barely speak English. They live a totally ghettoized existence. My parents moved to Berkeley when my dad got his position there, but they’re still very old-world,” Annie said.
In the darkness, Caroline could feel Annie’s sideways look at her, weighing whether to continue, whether to share a story that she likely had not told many people. If any.
“I met Franklin during my postgraduate fellowship,” Annie began. “He gave me . . . freedom. He supported my research. He gave me wings. My parents were always trying to set me up with nice Chinese boys. They sent me to Chinese school. But I’m American.” She paused. “I’m also not that into Chinese guys.”
Caroline nodded, her mental image of the scientist’s psychology becoming clearer. Given Annie’s natural reticence, Franklin must’ve worked hard to earn her trust. What a horrible betrayal it must have been then when Franklin rejected her.
“But Franklin wouldn’t leave Yvonne,” Caroline said.
“He said he couldn’t do that to her. Sometimes he could be annoyingly noble.”
“Did she love him?”
“No,” Annie answered too quickly.
The speed of her answer told Caroline there was something unsaid.
“Yvonne’s father is the pastor at a super conserva
tive megachurch in the congressional district that Franklin’s father represented for twenty years. They were political allies. Two peas in a conservative pod.” Annie shook her head. “Anyway, Yvonne and Franklin were like an arranged marriage. They’d known each other since childhood. Franklin’s father is retiring after his term ends. Yvonne’s dad is running for his seat.”
“Is he going to win?” Caroline asked.
“Hard to know. He’s got a well-funded opponent. It’s going to be a tight race. They’re already slinging mud at each other.”
Before Caroline could probe further, headlights appeared in her rearview mirror. High up. A truck. Closing fast.
Swinging the wheel to the right, Caroline moved over to let the truck pass. But the vehicle moved behind her, still closing fast.
Caroline’s nerves screamed up to full alert. She gunned the engine, and the Mustang responded, leaping ahead.
“What’s happening?” Annie asked.
“Someone’s behind us,” Caroline said, checking the rearview mirror again. The black truck kept pace with her, accelerating until it was only a car length behind.
Gripping the wheel with both hands, Caroline pulled to the right until she was clear of the vehicle behind her, then she hit the brakes, slowing so fast that the truck barreled past her. But the truck’s driver had good reflexes. He hit his brakes, too, slowing to run parallel with Caroline again, coming up fast on her left side. She glanced over. She couldn’t see the driver’s face in the dark. She hoped he didn’t hold a weapon.
Seeing a sign for an off-ramp up ahead, Caroline floored the accelerator as if to try to outrun the truck. Behind them, the truck accelerated, too, its greater weight taking longer to catch up.
Soon, the Mustang’s speedometer topped one hundred miles per hour.
Just as she was passing the off-ramp, Caroline hit the brakes. She turned the wheel hard to the right. Bumping across the low median strip, she shot down the off-ramp. The truck sped by, its momentum carrying it past the exit.
Watching the truck’s taillights continue down the freeway, Caroline blew out a long, slow breath. It would be miles before the truck could find an off-ramp and double back.
They were safe. For now.
With her heart pounding in her ears, Caroline piloted the Mustang to the shoulder of the road and shut off the engine. Despite the quiet, her head still rushed with adrenaline. Her vision swam with sudden dizziness.
She reached for her worry beads. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to concentrate on the smooth stones. She wondered at the soft clicking she heard until she realized it was her hand. Trembling. She forced herself to flip the beads over as the old man in the Western Cyclades had taught her. The first times were hard. Her hand wasn’t steady enough for a smooth flip. But gradually, she got the rhythm.
With a conscious act of will, she pushed everything out of her mind except the motion. The rhythm. The repetition.
“What the hell just happened?” Annie asked, her eyes wide. Then she focused on the worry beads clicking in Caroline’s hand. “What are those?”
“They’re Greek. They help chill me out,” Caroline muttered. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, trying to cage the panic that raced around the edges of her consciousness, looking for a breach. She needed her nerves to settle. Fast. She didn’t have time for an anxiety attack. Not here. Not now.
“How’d they find us?” Annie asked.
“I don’t know.” Her hand stilling, Caroline’s mind raced through the possibilities. Had they LoJacked her car? Had they hacked her credit card? Had someone spotted them at Burger Boy? Anything was possible.
She checked the rearview mirror. Nolan remained miraculously asleep. Even the swerving ride off the freeway hadn’t woken him. His face remained a picture of angelic repose, his breathing long and even.
“What do we do now?” Annie asked.
“We need to ditch the car. We need another plane reservation. We can’t leave from San Francisco or Oakland. They’ll expect us to fly to New York from one of those major airports. We need a different route. Something they won’t expect . . .”
Annie pulled out her phone. The glow from the screen lit her face from beneath, casting sharp shadows up her cheeks and forehead.
Caroline inclined her head in gratitude. Her own hands were still shaking too much to type.
“See what you can find on Kayak.com,” Caroline instructed.
“Looking now . . . San Jose doesn’t have any flights to New York,” Annie said.
“That’s okay, we don’t want to fly into New York. We need secondary airports,” Caroline said. “Think smaller regional ones.”
Annie went back to work, her thumbs pecking at her phone.
Then she looked up. “How about New Haven?”
Caroline paused. New Haven, Connecticut. Near her dad.
“That works. But we still can’t fly out of San Francisco or Oakland. Or even San Jose. Too dangerous.”
“I’ll try Santa Rosa,” Annie said. After a few moments, she shook her head. “There’s nothing tonight.”
“What about a charter?” Caroline suggested. “There’s got to be some website that sells extra seats on charters . . .”
“Give me a second,” Annie said, typing furiously on her phone. “You’re right. Here’s one . . . It goes in three hours. We can get three open seats on it to Denver for ninety dollars per person.”
“Good. What’s the routing after Denver?”
“Red eye to New Haven. It’ll get us in around six a.m.,” Annie said. “That’s another hundred per person.”
“That’ll work,” Caroline said. “Don’t book it, though. We can’t use a credit card. We’re going to have to pay in cash.”
After stopping at an ATM to withdraw as much money as the bank would allow in a twenty-four-hour period, they’d ditched the Mustang in the parking lot of the Oakland airport Marriott. But instead of taking the shuttle to the Oakland airport, they’d hired a driver to take them sixty minutes north to the airport in Santa Rosa. They’d moved quickly and without further incident.
Now Caroline walked with Nolan and Annie through the Charles M. Schulz Airport in Santa Rosa. She consoled herself that they seemed to have lost their pursuers. Soon, they’d fly to Denver, then from Denver to New Haven. It would take all night, but they’d still arrive twenty-four hours before the hearing. Exhausting, but doable.
In her mind, she repeated the mantra that kept the anxiety at bay: once Annie testified, they’d be free. Free of stress. Free of the danger that hounded them. She just needed to get the scientist safely to court in New York.
Passing through the final security checkpoint, Caroline found a uniformed flight attendant, who guided them down the deserted halls of the airport to a small door that opened onto the tarmac. The cool night air tasted good to Caroline after their long confinement in a car. She closed her eyes to savor the scent.
“Wow! Cool,” said Nolan from behind her.
Caroline opened her eyes and froze. A turboprop plane sat in front of her.
The plane was so small . . .
By the time she reached the top of the stairs up to the tiny door in the side of the plane’s metal skin, Caroline’s forehead had sprouted a light sheen of sweat, and her mouth had grown dry.
“Do you think they followed us here?” Annie asked from behind her.
“What?” Preoccupied with dying in a plane crash, Caroline had forgotten their pursuers. Now she scanned the airfield for signs of danger. Floodlights cast puddles of visibility on the taxiways and service areas. All appeared to be quiet.
“I think we’re okay,” Caroline said, except she didn’t feel okay. She reminded herself that the pilot wanted to make it home, too. But her mind didn’t buy it. So the pilot’s a fool, too, her mind retorted.
She took one final look at the world, then she ducked her head and stepped into the narrow fuselage. A cluster of men in clerical collars sat at the back of the plane. At the fro
nt of the plane sat a gray-haired woman who might have been a nun. The woman clutched a rosary in her hand, her fingers worrying their way down the row of beads.
Caroline took a seat on the wing.
Annie and Nolan sat across the aisle from her.
Caroline let her eyes settle on the possible nun seated at the front of the fuselage. She knew the old woman’s rosary was a distant cousin of the string of beads she held in her own pocket. For thousands of years, people had been using little strands of beads to bind anxiety and direct attention outward toward a benevolent deity, or inward to their own focused mindfulness. Whatever the origin and etiology, the reason was always the same: terror.
“Are you okay?” Annie asked.
Caroline turned to find the scientist gazing at her with concern in her dark eyes.
“You look a little pale,” Annie said.
“Being thousands of feet up with no wings of my own always makes me feel a little vulnerable. Especially in a small plane like this.”
“You’re far more likely to die in a car accident,” Annie said.
Caroline shook off the platitude. “At least I’m in control when I’m driving. I took a course called Physics of Flight in college. I figured it might help me get less nervous—like maybe if I knew more about flying, it wouldn’t be so stressful.”
“Did it work?” Annie asked.
“No. Every lesson ended up with the same message: ‘If you don’t follow these procedures, you’ll end up in a flat spin, crash, and die.’”
Caroline fell silent as the plane began to roll down the runway.
CHAPTER 16
Caroline gripped the armrests as another wave of turbulence coursed down the fuselage. She clamped her jaw shut so hard her temples throbbed. Her pulse raced and her stomach remained clenched even after the turbulence subsided. The symptoms were familiar, but unlike her usual bouts with anxiety, this one seemed entirely based in reality.
Across the aisle, Nolan pressed his nose up against the window. In his right hand, he held his fox up so that the stuffed animal could see, too.
Doubt (Caroline Auden Book 1) Page 26